BOARDWALK EMPIRE “The Emerald City” Review

BOARDWALK EMPIRE “The Emerald City” Review

This week,
women are allowed to vote. “You’ve caught up with Ireland at last!” Margaret
comments, before Nucky has her thank him for getting the vote. Margaret,
against her better judgement, gives a speech endorsing a corrupt man who will
become Nucky’s puppet. She knows this: she’s no idiot, but she needs Nucky more
than Nucky needs her, especially after a weird visit from Agent Van Alden.

The most
original character is also the most tortured. Was there any scene as
simultaneously sweet and pathetic as the Wizard of Oz reading, when Margaret
told her children that Richard Harrow was the tin woodsman? Or when he tells
Margaret that sometimes he forgets his deformed face until he passes a mirror?
Jack Huston’s throaty portrayal of Harrow surely deserves an Emmy nomination.

Van Alden,
at the end of his tether after his informant was shot, goes to Margaret and
shows her the photograph of her sixteen year old self, confessing to looking at
it at night. The scene was beautifully played by both Michael Sheen (how tall
is he?)’s self-righteous Van Alden and Kelly Macdonald’s Margaret, who
maintained some control by ordering him out of her home. She clutches for the
mantle for balance, and he clutches a glass of whiskey and Lucy. What happened
between Van Alden and Lucy was not shocking because it was unpredictable (we
all know what Lucy’s like) but because of Van Alden’s shame after they finished
having explicit sex. It was like one of his whipping punishments without the
whip.